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Geraldine Birch

The Swastika Tattoo

Synopsis

The Swastika Tatto is about a German U-boat crewman who is captured by the Americans during WWII and sent to a POW camp in Arizona where he labors picking cotton for a Jewish farmer and comes face-to-face with the bigotry and intolerance he learned as a Hitler Youth. Through long months of internment, his only joy is his friendship with the farmer’s son who shows him the true meaning of humanity, individualism, and democracy and just as his repatriation to Germany is in sight, his camp bunk-mate is brutally murdered and he realizes he is the next target of the hard-core Nazis who really control the Arizona prison camp.

Author Biography

Writing has been my passion since I sat down at my mother's old Remington typewriter at the age of ten, pecking away in the cozy kitchen nook of my grandmother’s house in Los Angeles. Since then, I’ve worked as a reporter and editor for small community newspapers in Southern California and Arizona; but my best beat was as a stringer for the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Bureau (no longer in existence) for a number of years. It was there, under the tutelage of a great editor that I really learned to write. Since then, I’ve moved into the realm of fiction with Sedona: City of Refugees and then historical fiction with The Swastika Tattoo, a book about a real German POW camp located near Phoenix during WWII. That book received an honorable mention in Reader's Favorite international book contest. My newspaper column “Gerrymandering” received a first place award from the National Newspaper Association. While awards mean one’s work is recognized and appreciated by judges, nothing thrills me more than having someone tell me they have enjoyed my books. I have recently finished my memoir, Vision of a Happy Life, and plan to bring a few chapters onto Bublish.

Author Insight

Social Status is Everything

In post-war Germany, social status was incredibly important. One of my main characters, Hermann Meier feels out of his league at the commissioning of U-26.

Book Excerpt

The Swastika Tattoo

Hermann Meier sat straight in his chair in the bow torpedo room of U-26. He was incredibly uncomfortable, although he tried desperately not to show it by wiping his sweaty hands carefully under the table with the clean white handkerchief he always carried in his pocket.

Someone touched his shoulder, and when he looked up, he saw it was one of the shipyard owners, a man of great wealth and prestige. The man smiled at Hermann.

“She is beautiful, is she not, Hermann?” said Ludwig von Clausen, referring to the 750-ton boat designed to prove to Great Britain the strength of theKriegsmarine, the Third Reich’s new war navy.

“Yes,” Hermann replied, shyly. That von Clausen would even speak to him was of momentary shock. He took a large gulp of air to calm his nerves, making a mental note to relate the day’s events to Luise.

Hermann noticed the U-boat’s deadly torpedo tubes were hid behind bright swastika flags. Fine linen tablecloths covered the long table along with colorful spring flowers, and champagne glasses were placed in front of every chair. Hermann nodded to several men he knew who were senior yard managers, but he did not have the slightest knowledge who the rest of the guests were, although he guessed they were dignitaries from the Third Reich and the German Navy.

At the head of the table was a man Hermann had not seen before. To the left of the unknown man wasKapitänleutnantHartmann. Suddenly the unknown man stood and as he did, Hermann realized with a shock he wasKriegsmarineCommander-in-Chief Erich Raeder. Everyone, including Hermann stood up.

A prim man, Raeder did not smile but instead seemed to look straight ahead at no one in particular. “This is a momentous day,” Raeder said. “I am extremely grateful to the men at AG Weser for their work on this magnificent U-boat. She will be of great pride to theKriegsmarineand to the Third Reich. U-26 and her sister boat, U-25, is but the beginning of a new life for the U-boat arm of the German Navy. The German people need never worry again about the security of their ports.”

Everyone applauded and then theKapitänleutnantpopped open a bottle of champagne to the roar of the crowd. Crewman suddenly appeared and opened more bottles to fill the guests’ glasses. When all was ready, the crowd lifted their arms high with champagne bubbling over onto the tablecloths.